Incomplete list of bad things about FOSDEM:

• it has long outgrown the venue but is still held there
• it is extremely busy and noisy and bad for neurodivergent people
• devrooms are run by in-group cliques who just give slots to their best pals (from the same projects or teams as them) every year
• probably related to previous: average quality of talks is not very good
• as a participant, you have no protection of your privacy
• as a participant, you have no protection from harassment

Require devroom organizers to do double-blind review of talk proposals, and limit each person to a maximum number of submissions for the whole of FOSDEM, and watch the average quality of talk content increase dramatically

Allow speakers to opt out of being streamed and recorded, and for the talks which *are* streamed, ensure all cameras are carefully angled (with long lenses where needed) so that no audience members can accidentally appear in frame

Appoint a fucking awareness team!!1one

Get some competent fire safety advice which will tell you that it is of no importance whatsoever whether all the people in each classroom fit in the available seats if, on the way out, the escape were blocked by a large (uncontrolled) number of people in the corridor, whose way is in turn blocked by tables belonging to project stands

(the result of this advice will be moving to a venue more appropriate to the number of attendees and the usage pattern of the buildings during the weekend)

@dpk if talks aren't all streamed and recorded then the too-small venue becomes even more of an issue

The stands in H last year were, in hindsight, truly terrifying from a fire safety perspective

This year the upper floor of F1 was practically a death trap, as was UD where there were stands literally in front of and partially blocking devroom doors

And yeah, find a venue where you can take air quality and air hygiene seriously, too – funny how numerous other industries and interest groups have annual conferences the same size or larger, without having a folk illness named after them

this lesbian conference doesn’t have a fire exit

@dpk Is it the only conference without a fire exit?

@dpk yeah, that’s why I don’t intend to go to FOSDEM, they really really REALLY need to change venue place